Some people would kill for a commute of only a few hundred feet, especially when the house you live in looks like this and your office looks like this. But Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) apparently makes the commute in a Lincoln Towncar, and now The Associated Press is asking why:

In Kentucky, the lawns of the Capitol and the mansion are separated only by a narrow tree-shaded street, but Fletcher routinely rides to and from his office. In the meantime, his administration is encouraging Kentuckians to walk more as part of a statewide fitness initiative to combat obesity, diabetes and heart disease. The administration has begun running radio announcements calling on residents to walk or bike more.

The Kentucky governor makes no apologies for riding to work.

"I think that's been a tradition for a long time," he said. "That's what security likes."

Not only does the AP story provide us with the stock quotes from Democrats saying Fletcher should practice what he preaches, but it also gives us a glimpse of what other governors do for their commutes.

Across the country, several governors who live near state Capitols routinely walk to work. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack sometimes jogs the three miles from the Capitol to his home. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer walks, with his dog Jag, seven blocks to his office. And Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn routinely walked the 10 blocks to his office before he had hip replacement surgery.

Like Fletcher, Govs. Chris Gregoire in Washington state, Rick Perry in Texas and Haley Barbour in Mississippi routinely ride to work from their homes next door.

Who knows? Barbour just launched a get-healthy initiative too. As the Clarion-Ledger reported a few weeks ago:

Maybe now Barbour'll start walking to work. Or maybe he'll just read about his short commute in the paper.

"Let's face it, those of us who grew up in Mississippi -- and particularly up in the Delta like I did -we're used to the worst of it," Gov. Haley Barbour said. "We cooked everything in lard, put sugar on anything. If you couldn't fry it, you couldn't eat it.

"Heck," he said, "I've even had fried ice cream."

Barbour pledged Thursday to "set an example" for the rest of the state in following a healthy lifestyle from now on.

Sorry for the long hiatus. I recently moved apartments and lost home Internet for a while, but, thankfully, that's been resolved... So I'm back to posting again...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) recently accepted his party's nomination to carry the GOP banner in the governor's race this fall. What really made waves, though, was his efforts to whip up the Republican base. Here's the St. Paul Pioneer Press' take:

Pawlenty, the restrained statesman during the recently completed
legislative session, showed his fierce partisan side in a speech that
fired up what had been a relatively lackadaisical gathering.

"I can tell you what your worst nightmare is," he told the 1,072
delegates. "It's one of the big-spendin', tax-raisin',
abortion-promotin', gay marriage-embracin', more welfare without
accountability-lovin', school reform-resistin', illegal
immigration-supportin' DFL candidates for governor who thinks Hillary
Clinton should be president."

Definitely some red meat for the party faithful. But the comment also reminded me of a study (see page 24 of the PDF) by political scientist Gary Jacobson at the University of California, San Diego showing that Pawlenty is the most polarizing governor in the country. Jacobson defined polarizing as having the widest disparity of approval ratings between Dems and Republicans, based on Survey USA data.

Following Pawlenty was Washington State's Gov. Christine Gregoire (D), who earned her post after a protracted recount struggle in 2004. Then came Florida's Jeb Bush (R), brother of the president; Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) of California, who has played nice with Dems this spring after stirring up a hornet's nest by attacking key Democrat constituencies with ballot initiatives in November; Mitt Romney (R) of Massachusetts, who's distanced himself from the blue state legacy of the Bay State while exploring a possible 2008 presidential run; and Missouri's Matt Blunt (R), son of U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, and a frequent target of criticism for cutting back the state's Medicaid benefits.

And the least polarizing? That'd be Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D), who's the only governor to enjoy MORE support among the opposing party than his own. Bredesen, as you may know, has, like Blunt, taken lots of heat for cuts to the state's Medicaid program (called TennCare). Over nine months, Bredesen averaged 48.9 percent approval from Dems compared to 56.6 percent from Republicans.

Following Bredesen are a bunch of govs with high overall approval ratings: Dave Freudenthal (D) of Wyoming, Kenny Guinn (R) of Nevada, Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia and Jodi Rell (R) of Connecticut.

Education Sector, a Washington think tank with apparently liberal leanings, castigated many states -- particularly Wisconsin -- for manipulating the way they handled reporting required by No Child Left Behind. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes:

Kevin Carey, the author of the report, created what he called "a Pangloss Index," ranking states by how they are implementing provisions of the four-year-old law if their goal was to imitate a fictional character from Voltaire's "Candide," "who insisted, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that we live in the best of all possible worlds."

Wisconsin ranks first in the index, followed by Iowa, Connecticut and Nebraska.

"The state is a modern day educational utopia where a large majority of students meet academic standards, high school graduation rates are high, every school is safe and nearly all teachers are highly qualified," if you believe what the DPI says, the report says.

"How is that possible?" it then asks. "The answer lies with the way Wisconsin has chosen to define the AYP (adequate yearly progress) standard" and other provisions in the law.

Tony Evers, deputy state superintendent of schools, took strong exception to the report's claim that Wisconsin is out to frustrate the federal law.

"I couldn't disagree more," he said. "The intent of the law wasn't to rank states on gaming the system. The intent of the law was to have no child left behind, and I believe absolutely it has brought a significant focus on that issue." He said the DPI was committed to doing everything it could to close the gap in achievement between high performing and low performing schools and groups of students.

The report is here. In case you're curious, Hawaii, Maryland, New Mexico and Nevada were the least "optimistic," according to the researchers.

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) is not very popular these days. At Stateline.org today, a Washington reporter for the Record of Bergen County explains why Corzine, despite his business experience, proposed an austere budget that isn't winning him many friends. Pretty interesting stuff.

As if to underscore the point, though, Corzine tops the nation's governors for biggest hit in his approval ratings in a single month, according to SurveyUSA data released yesterday. In the month after laying out his budget, Corzine's positives dropped 15 POINTS.

Liked by a little more than half of those polled in March, Corzine is now viewed favorably by barely more than a third of the respondents in April. In fact, his positive and negative numbers basically flip-flopped in the last month.

Four other govs saw their approval ratings drop by 5 percent, according to the survey:

Bill Owens (R) of Colorado, where immigration has been a divisive subject

Mitch Daniels (R) of Indiana, where the toll road lease was recently completed and the state celebrated Daylight Savings Time for the first time

Michael Easley (D) of North Carolina, which just rolled out its first lottery

Jennifer Granholm (D) of Michigan, where voters have been flooded recently by ads from Granholm's Republican challenger, businessman Dick DeVos

There are currently nine members of the U.S. House seeking to become governors in their home states. Seven of them voted in favor of a House bill that sparked a huge backlash among the immigrant community. It would beef up border security and make sneaking into the country a criminal offense. It would also penalize those that help illegal immigrants. The measure, HR 4437, passed on a 239-182 vote on Dec. 16.

Six of the Republicans and one of the Democrats pursuing a governor's seat voted in favor of it. One Democrat voted against it, and one Republican missed the vote. Here's how it breaks down: